MLS Game #14: DCU 3 - San Jose 1

Marcelo Gallardo collected his first two assists of the season and Luciano Emiliio scored for the fifth straight game - the longest streak in MLS this year - as United topped visiting San Jose 3-1 this afternoon at RFK. The team's unbeaten streak is now at five games, having won four and tied one over the last four weeks.

UPDATE: Post-game quotes are below and I've added a few photos to the Video & Pics page. The team will be taking part in the annual celebrity golf tournament tomorrow and then get back to training on Tuesday in preparation for next Sunday's game with the Galaxy. More than 30,000 tickets are sold, so if you don't have yours yet, get them soon!

D.C. United Head Coach Tom Soehn

On Gonzalo Martinez

He injects some light obviously going forward when he does come forward. He’s got pace and that’s hard to stop whether it’s in the defensive end or moving forward. It’s nice that he can take the opportunity to score a goal because he can do it.

On Zach Wells

I’m more concerned with how the team played today. As a whole we didn’t show up today. We came in with a mentality that we won the game and that’s discouraging for me. I don’t think we were good on the competitive side or on the soccer side. We addressed it at halftime and got a little bit better. But there are not too many days where you can come like we did today and come out with a result.

On next week’s game against the Galaxy

We have to come out and compete, everybody, and we didn’t do a good job of that today. One positive is on the days that you don’t show up and you still come out of the result, I would say that that’s part of a good team is that when you don’t have it and you pull out a result. We’re going to chalk that one up to that but we’re going to get back to work to make sure we don’t come out with the complacency we had today.

On San Jose’s offense

Well, we really helped because we kept giving them the ball. It was really easy we just kept giving them the ball, with or without pressure.

D.C. United Midfielder Ryan Cordeiro

On the game

It was just on more today. I had space out on the wing and I got the ball in good spots. The first game I played it was more defensive because I was playing against a different type team, a different type of player, but today I was going forward.

D.C. United Midfielder Clyde Simms

On the game

We were trying to find our way and unfortunately came out of there 0-0 at halftime. We regrouped and played much better in the second half.

On the upcoming home games

We got a long home stretch and we’re definitely trying to get points out of this stretch. We’re down in the standings and fortunately we had some results go our way and so we’re trying to get three [points] to try to move up.

On his goal

First thing on my mind was to shoot it when I got it. It popped up and no one was close so I was trying to get my touch forward and keep it low and hard. I know there was a lot of bodies in front of me and the mouth of the goal so I tried to keep it low and hard and fortunately I got a nice deflection.

D.C. United Defender Gonzalo Martinez

On his goal

I kept moving forward. I had help from Bryan [Namoff], Luciano [Emilio] and Jaime [Moreno]. They opened up space for me, I had a good opportunity and I was faster.

On wanting to score more goals

Of course, but I’m looking to score more goals for the good of the team. A few games back we were suffering, always walking with our heads down and now we’re better and trying to do anything for the good of the club.

On playing left back

It’s a position I’ve already played before. They’re very similar. The only difference is from lateral to center back is that the center has to be more on his mark and the lateral can attack more.

D.C. United forward Luciano Emilio

On the slow start

The game was very compact in the first half. We didn’t have space in the midfield, in the forward. But I tried to help; I think we moved the ball side to side. We looked for space we played fast forward and got chances and scored goals.

San Jose Earthquakes Head Coach Frank Yallop

On the game:

I thought we played good stuff at times. But I thought the referee was poor today to be honest; he missed a play, so that hurts but again we didn’t win so it doesn’t matter really.

On the first half

I think that if you look at the general play we played well today. I thought we created some good chances and we limited DC to not many chances in the first half, other than [Luciano] Emilio who had a chance that hit the post. I thought they just had a couple deflected shots and that hurts when they go in, but you can’t really do much about it, and it was a bit of a wonder goal with the second one. But we had our chances in the first half. John [Cunliffe] had a couple of sniffs and Ryan Johnson with a chance on a set play. But it’s just disappointing that we can’t seem to get playing well and get the right time to score. That’s been our problem really.

On the red card

It looked like a mistimed tackle and I haven’t seen it on DVD or video but he’s not a dirty player and he’s going for the ball and I think he just mistimed it. The one when [Gonzalo] Peralta grabs Ryan Johnson? That should have been a red card.

On where the team goes from here

We’re trotting along, and it’s a shame that we haven’t got any more points than we have. Performance-wise, we’ve played a lot and not gotten anything out of the game. So it’s tough to take, and I think the quality in the end showed, Emilio scored and he’s a good player. General play and things that we talk about coaching-wise and being structured is good. We’ve got three forwards not even healthy which doesn’t help. Ryan Johnson’s really a wide midfielder playing up front with John. But it is what it is and we keep plowing on and we look to the wind to try and strengthen and get some more points at the end of the season.

On Ryan Johnson

Ryan’s done a good job up there. It’s not a natural position he’s a wide player, but he has played up front in some of his career. He’s a strong boy, he’s a handful. He gives us a little of a battering ram up front. I think he holds the ball well, he had a couple of situations where he could have gotten a shot off but that’s Ryan. He’s still young, but he did okay today.

San Jose Forward Ryan Johnson

On D.C. United

When you watch D.C., when they get the ball they have three or four guys around the ball at all times. If they’re on the far left corner or on the far right corner, it’s like three guys around the ball: quick touch, quick touch. But with us, we get the ball to one area or we switch the ball or move the ball to our forwards and it’s maybe one guy to support, it’s only one option. Not all the time but sometimes. It’s tough because these defenders, they’re tough and they’re not going to let you hold the ball for more than two or three seconds, so we have to play quickly.

On the team’s play

We definitely fought hard and didn’t want to give them the win but they’re a good team, very good at scoring goals and they showed that tonight. We fought hard, we didn’t just give up and that’s one positive we can take out of this game today.

San Jose Midfielder Ronnie O’Brien

On the team’s performance

In the first half we played really well. We created a lot of chances. For the most part we were happy at halftime. We came out a little flat in the second half, were unlucky with a deflection and I don’t think we were helped by the calls we got.

On what’s lacking

It’s tough – we’re trying. Obviously there’s a period of getting to know each other. We’re not using the expansion draft as an excuse. We do feel we’re a good enough team and we’ve been in every game. For the most part we’re not getting trounced on. We got two deflected goals. We’re not using the expansion team as an excuse. It’s just we’re not playing a solid 90 minutes. We’re playing 50, 60 minutes and the other 30 minutes we’re getting punished. We’ve got 30 minutes that we need to work on and keep our concentration and I think we’ll get some more results.

San Jose Defender Kelly Gray

On the loss

I hate to say luck but we got a couple of unlucky plays where a little deflection causes a goal. Their first goal was just unlucky. Joe [Cannon] was close to saving that, it was just a bad touch by James [Roe;u] but you can’t really fault him on that because he was trying to block a shot. And their second goal you have to give it to them. It was a good goal, nothing you can do about that. Then the third one also, it was a ball on top of our own box and they punished us for it with another deflection.